03-06-2006, 02:46 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Pioneer, March 5, 2006
BOOKS
<b>The governing genesis of Islam</b>
<i>Irshad Manji's book is extremely controversial and in some ways harsh but one suspects that in its very provocation lies Islam's road to greatness </i>
- MV Kamath
<b>THE TROUBLE WITH ISLAM TODAY, BY IRSHAD MANJI, IMPRINT ONE, RS 295 </b>
Irshad Manji is not Salman Rushdie; were she one, the Islamic fundamentalists would have come down heavily on her. But she is a self-proclaimed Refusenik, one who refuses to accept everything said in the Quran at face value. Even for that, she would have invited punishment, of a severe sort. But, surprise, surprise - her book carries a foreword by Prof Khaleel Mohammed who is an Imam who studied sharia at Muhammad bin Saudi University in Riyadh (Sunni) and Zoinabiyya in Damazscue (Shia) and holds a PhD in Islamic Law from MC Gill University and is currently a professor at San Diego state University.
In his revealing foreword he writes: "Let us face a simple fact. I should hate Irshad Manji. If Muslims listen to her they will stop listening to people like me, an Imam who spent years at a traditional Islamic university. She threatens my male authority and says things about Islam that I wish were not true. She has a big mouth and fact upon fact to corroborate her analyses. She doesn't fear death. She is a lesbian and my madarsa training has instilled, almost into my DNS, that Allah hates gays and lesbians. I should really hate this woman. But then I look into my heart and engage my mind and I come to a discomfiting conclusion: Irshad is telling the truth. And my God commands me to uphold the truth - which means that I have to side with her..." What brave words. They seem especially brave as one reads this provocative work that pulls no punches.
Rarely, as Professor Khaleel Mohammad himself notes, has a Muslim stated publicly "what so many of us know but dare not confirm" like "Jew bashing, as well as the urge to lay the responsibility for all of Islam's ills on Western colonisation, while neglecting Islam own history of imperialism and continued human rights abuses in the name of Allah."
Irshad Manji often quotes from the Quran itself to make a point. She cites the holy book saying: "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient... as for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in bed apart and beat them." The thorough feminist that Manji is, she can't accept this injunction. No woman likes to be beaten, as no man would. Is that Islam? Manji, who also happens to be a TV journalist, says many people ask her: "Are you allowed to be a Muslim and feminist?" And some also ask her, "Aren't you afraid to speak up?"
Sadly Manji notes - and she alone should know - that Islam has a popular teaching against "excessive laughter". She says, "If the black magic of laughter is so offensive, why isn't the hypnotic, lyrical effect of the Arab language, recited aloud, also frowned upon?" Good question.
There was a time when Irshad attended a madarsa. Now, having become a madarsa "causalty" she asks: "Should I bid goodbye to Islam?" After discussing the issue Irshad adds: "Since the Quran makes room for the exercise of free will who do the governing geniuses of Islam seem to default into narrowness? Why don't more of them choose the path of openness." Irshad opted for Ijtihad, the Islamic tradition of independent reasoning, which allows every Muslim, female or male, straight or gay, old or young, to update his or her religious practice in light of contemporary circumstances. She started reading, surfing and talking to scholars.
Who made Ijtihad a tradition? Where was it practiced and what did that society look like? She found many answers. In Iraq, the heart of the Islamic Empire, Christians worked along side Muslims to translate and revive Greek philosophy.
In Spain, the Western rim of Islam's reach, Muslims devoted what one Yale historian called a "culture of tolerance" with Jews. Innovation and the spirit of Ijtihad went hand in glove. In Baghdad, the centre of empire bustled. Irshad insists that if Muslim Spain crumbled, it was not because of "ravenous" Christians, but because of Muslims themselves. As she puts it, "Our problems didn't start with the dastardly crusaders. Our problems started with us." A courageous thing to say. It was only when the gates of Ijtihad were closed that the right of independent thinking became the privilege of the mufti.
In countries where Jews and Christians as a minority lived with a Muslim majority, the ruling majority imposed insufferable conditions on the former. Thus rules were enforced that Jews and Christians should not occupy the middle of the road or seats in the market, obstruct Muslims and differentiate themselves by their saddles and their mounts. Irshad obviously does not know, but similar and even worse rules were laid down in India.
But, Irshad points out, Muslims are intolerant not only of non-Muslims but even of Muslims themselves. According to her, a majority of the world's refugees spill out from Muslim countries and she quotes Amir Taheri, an Iranian journalist, as saying that the Arab states have fought open or secret wars against each other since the 1930s.
In the past 10 years alone, Islamists and their socialist foes have bombarded a hundred thousand Algerians and that in February 1982, the Baathist forces of Syria's Hafez Assad had bombarded a town harbouring Muslim extremists and obliterated 25,000 people. And from 1975 to 1990 the Lebanese civil war cost at least 150,000 lives most of them Palestinians. An angry Irshad asserts that Muslims "exhibit a knack for degrading women and religious minorities". She should know. Irshad has her critics.
But as Pakistan's Friday Times has noted, Manji has in no way abandoned her Muslim identity. It states her case: "What exactly (she) is refusing to do is simple: she refuses to accept that Islam is a stagnant and unchanging structure. She blames the Arabness of Islam for many things and adds that even in Kuala Lumpur, Mahathir Mohammad has let it slip that Islam's leadership can no longer come from the Arabs."
There may be strong opposition to it from certain sections of Muslims, but it is clear that in many ways she has got the support of many thinking liberal Muslims. This book reflects that it is controversial and in some ways somewhat harsh but one suspects that in its very provocation lies Islam's road to greatness. At least that is what many who praised her book seem to say. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
BOOKS
<b>The governing genesis of Islam</b>
<i>Irshad Manji's book is extremely controversial and in some ways harsh but one suspects that in its very provocation lies Islam's road to greatness </i>
- MV Kamath
<b>THE TROUBLE WITH ISLAM TODAY, BY IRSHAD MANJI, IMPRINT ONE, RS 295 </b>
Irshad Manji is not Salman Rushdie; were she one, the Islamic fundamentalists would have come down heavily on her. But she is a self-proclaimed Refusenik, one who refuses to accept everything said in the Quran at face value. Even for that, she would have invited punishment, of a severe sort. But, surprise, surprise - her book carries a foreword by Prof Khaleel Mohammed who is an Imam who studied sharia at Muhammad bin Saudi University in Riyadh (Sunni) and Zoinabiyya in Damazscue (Shia) and holds a PhD in Islamic Law from MC Gill University and is currently a professor at San Diego state University.
In his revealing foreword he writes: "Let us face a simple fact. I should hate Irshad Manji. If Muslims listen to her they will stop listening to people like me, an Imam who spent years at a traditional Islamic university. She threatens my male authority and says things about Islam that I wish were not true. She has a big mouth and fact upon fact to corroborate her analyses. She doesn't fear death. She is a lesbian and my madarsa training has instilled, almost into my DNS, that Allah hates gays and lesbians. I should really hate this woman. But then I look into my heart and engage my mind and I come to a discomfiting conclusion: Irshad is telling the truth. And my God commands me to uphold the truth - which means that I have to side with her..." What brave words. They seem especially brave as one reads this provocative work that pulls no punches.
Rarely, as Professor Khaleel Mohammad himself notes, has a Muslim stated publicly "what so many of us know but dare not confirm" like "Jew bashing, as well as the urge to lay the responsibility for all of Islam's ills on Western colonisation, while neglecting Islam own history of imperialism and continued human rights abuses in the name of Allah."
Irshad Manji often quotes from the Quran itself to make a point. She cites the holy book saying: "Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient... as for those from whom you fear disobedience, admonish them, forsake them in bed apart and beat them." The thorough feminist that Manji is, she can't accept this injunction. No woman likes to be beaten, as no man would. Is that Islam? Manji, who also happens to be a TV journalist, says many people ask her: "Are you allowed to be a Muslim and feminist?" And some also ask her, "Aren't you afraid to speak up?"
Sadly Manji notes - and she alone should know - that Islam has a popular teaching against "excessive laughter". She says, "If the black magic of laughter is so offensive, why isn't the hypnotic, lyrical effect of the Arab language, recited aloud, also frowned upon?" Good question.
There was a time when Irshad attended a madarsa. Now, having become a madarsa "causalty" she asks: "Should I bid goodbye to Islam?" After discussing the issue Irshad adds: "Since the Quran makes room for the exercise of free will who do the governing geniuses of Islam seem to default into narrowness? Why don't more of them choose the path of openness." Irshad opted for Ijtihad, the Islamic tradition of independent reasoning, which allows every Muslim, female or male, straight or gay, old or young, to update his or her religious practice in light of contemporary circumstances. She started reading, surfing and talking to scholars.
Who made Ijtihad a tradition? Where was it practiced and what did that society look like? She found many answers. In Iraq, the heart of the Islamic Empire, Christians worked along side Muslims to translate and revive Greek philosophy.
In Spain, the Western rim of Islam's reach, Muslims devoted what one Yale historian called a "culture of tolerance" with Jews. Innovation and the spirit of Ijtihad went hand in glove. In Baghdad, the centre of empire bustled. Irshad insists that if Muslim Spain crumbled, it was not because of "ravenous" Christians, but because of Muslims themselves. As she puts it, "Our problems didn't start with the dastardly crusaders. Our problems started with us." A courageous thing to say. It was only when the gates of Ijtihad were closed that the right of independent thinking became the privilege of the mufti.
In countries where Jews and Christians as a minority lived with a Muslim majority, the ruling majority imposed insufferable conditions on the former. Thus rules were enforced that Jews and Christians should not occupy the middle of the road or seats in the market, obstruct Muslims and differentiate themselves by their saddles and their mounts. Irshad obviously does not know, but similar and even worse rules were laid down in India.
But, Irshad points out, Muslims are intolerant not only of non-Muslims but even of Muslims themselves. According to her, a majority of the world's refugees spill out from Muslim countries and she quotes Amir Taheri, an Iranian journalist, as saying that the Arab states have fought open or secret wars against each other since the 1930s.
In the past 10 years alone, Islamists and their socialist foes have bombarded a hundred thousand Algerians and that in February 1982, the Baathist forces of Syria's Hafez Assad had bombarded a town harbouring Muslim extremists and obliterated 25,000 people. And from 1975 to 1990 the Lebanese civil war cost at least 150,000 lives most of them Palestinians. An angry Irshad asserts that Muslims "exhibit a knack for degrading women and religious minorities". She should know. Irshad has her critics.
But as Pakistan's Friday Times has noted, Manji has in no way abandoned her Muslim identity. It states her case: "What exactly (she) is refusing to do is simple: she refuses to accept that Islam is a stagnant and unchanging structure. She blames the Arabness of Islam for many things and adds that even in Kuala Lumpur, Mahathir Mohammad has let it slip that Islam's leadership can no longer come from the Arabs."
There may be strong opposition to it from certain sections of Muslims, but it is clear that in many ways she has got the support of many thinking liberal Muslims. This book reflects that it is controversial and in some ways somewhat harsh but one suspects that in its very provocation lies Islam's road to greatness. At least that is what many who praised her book seem to say. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->